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To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry.

— Gaston Bachelard Fragments of a Poetics of Fire (1988)

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More quotes by Gaston Bachelard

Man is a creation of desire, not a creation of need.

The subconscious is ceaselessly murmuring, and it is by listening to these murmurs that one hears the truth.

La poétique de la rêverie (The Poetics of Reverie) (1960)

Even a minor event in the life of a child is an event of that child’s world and thus a world event.

Fragments of a Poetics of Fire (1988)

The words of the world want to make sentences.

La poétique de la rêverie (The Poetics of Reverie) (1960)

Reverie is not a mind vacuum. It is rather the gift of an hour which knows the plenitude of the soul.

La poétique de la rêverie (The Poetics of Reverie) (1960)

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Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

Francis Bacon Meditationes sacræ (1597)

It is not in the books of the Philosophers, but in the religious symbolism of the Ancients, that we must look for the footprints of Science, and re-discover the Mysteries of Knowledge.

Albert Pike Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)

There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.

Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit 451 (1953)

People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

Logan Pearsall Smith Afterthoughts (1931)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Gaston Bachelard (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.